The Phoenix's Essence
by TheUncannySapiens
Summary: Somewhere, somehow it all went wrong, and all that's left from a once thriving relationship are a hero and a scapegoat – and House, taken up in playing his own games with them. When Cameron rejoins the team to fill in for Taub, though, things just might spin out of control... established/broken-up Camteen, expletives, substance abuse, additional changes in the plotline, sarcasm


Hello. If you've come here to read my story, or at least the first chapter, that would be great. I haven't written much on this page yet but find myself thoroughly enjoying it, and it makes me quite happy to get reviews and see that people, even though it may only be a few, indeed read it. If you like this story, it would be quite nice if you continued to read it, but I'm rather busy most of the time so despite being determined to finish what I start, there's no way of telling how long it may take.

I've changed a few things. I never watched the _House_ seasons in their right order, and keep confusing what happens at which point, and there are a few things I just hated that happened at the same time the things I loved did, so here's what I had in mind: Overall, it's set late season 6. House and Cuddy were together but broke up, and since I wasn't fond of them Cuddy probably won't play an important part in my piece either. I liked her best in the older seasons, so if she appears she'll probably talk to House more in the manner she used to. Thirteen and Foreman were together but aren't any longer, and Cameron and Chase are divorced for the same reasons as in the show, but Cameron never left PPTH and they aren't incredibly mad at each other... their relationship is probably as it is after "Lockdown". Masters isn't a part of the team, though, because I just don't know what to make of her, so while Thirteen was gone there was basically just an empty spot in the team.

Just to be clear: There's no "substance abuse" in this chapter. At least as far as I'm concerned, that would be constituted in a very different way. The swearing is also there, deifinitely, but mild. If you've ever been stuck in traffick behind a bunch of idiots or attended a public elementary school, you've probably screamed things a thousand times worse. I don't really write sex-scenes. I don't mind them, but I suck at writing anything even half-erotic.

And that's basically it. Please review! I mean, it's up to you but I don't have a problem taking criticism, as long as you don't insult me. I don't have much of a problem with being insulted on the Internet either, but then you'll get every bit of it coming back at you it that's possible and if you're writing mean anonymous reviews... well, where's the fun in that?

I tried to do an okay job concerning grammar and spelling, but I generally make a lot of mistakes, or get confused with my own writing.

Obviously, I don't own _House MD_. It is a strange fact that FOX airs both the most awesome shows ever, and the _O'Reilly Facto_r. I never know whether I should love or hate the network. That must be a thing, right? Being confused in your televisionary identity or something...

Anyway, please leave a feedback & enjoy!

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**Chapter 1: The Unlikely Beginning of Something Extraordinary **

* * *

_I'm always excited by the unlikely, never by the ordinary things._

David Hockney

* * *

There was a humming noise. Far away, but still too loud, every second causing the hammering headache she had woken up with to deliver another firm blow to her brain. The blurry picture of an eggshell ceiling took shape in front of her eyes, only to flicker with every surge of pain. Her eyes tried to find her alarm clock and then her cell phone before she realized it, but none of the two made this kind of sound. Without a doubt their noise was just as deadly, but in a much more piercing way.

Yes, it was a quiet, loud, exploding, dizzying humming noise she was dealing with; source unknown, yet very antagonizing.

Or maybe there wasn't such a noise at all. Maybe her brain just was exactly as screwed up as it felt and she was hearing painful noises as a result of it. It wouldn't be a surprise, really. The dim light falling through the close-drawn but partly transparent curtains was about to blind her and while every cell in her body screamed for water, her stomach made it unmistakably clear that she was not, under any circumstance whatsoever, to pour _anything _down her throat or twice as much would come up again. She was hungry too, and sick from feeling hungry, but independently sick to her stomach as well, and also too confused to even consider eating. The dull surface of her teeth and the sour, foul taste that had creeped in every corner of her mouth and prevented every bit of appetite to form. She knew that she was filthy, but that was about it. The rest of her night was gone, making it impossible to solve the riddle that was the present.

If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that she had messed up somebody's clothes. The smell of her throw-up was either a vivid memory or still sphering her hair. There had been a party, that much she remembered. It hadn't been the party of a friend, and she hadn't planned on going anywhere, so she had probably crashed it. There had been a forest, too, and a side-stripe next to a dark road, and wet grass and a damp, earthy ground. It had also been cold, and she was rather sure that she had lied down behind a bush, put her head down into the dirt and slept until she had woken up from having been freezing too badly to continue her sleep. And then there had been help, and a lot of vomit, and then a car and even more vomit, and then her bed, and then this morning.

So far, so good. It wasn't much, ridiculously little to be honest, but better than nothing.

She slowly pushed herself up and got to her feet. The room spun around her crazily, but steadied after a few seconds, or a few minutes. Once she found herself able to stand without having to cling to the massive bedpost for support, she quickly put together what she knew so far. Something had happened, and she should and likely would be utterly embarrassed about it once she found out what it was. Discouraging. Most of all, tiresome. If she went back to sleep now, she'd probably never have to find out the truth.

The hallway was empty of anything unexpected, safe for a pair of boots she didn't recognize, and her own heels she had worn yesterday and that she wouldn't have thought to find neatly standing next to each other at the entrance. The noise had gotten louder and sounded as if it was coming from her bathroom. Probably the washing machine, even though she could, with her best will, not remember putting anything in there.

Sighing, she continued her unsteady, private walk of shame, and froze in the doorframe to her living room, spotting the person throwing up on whom she only remembered ever-so-vaguely. The few shards of memory she possessed fell into place within seconds, succeeded by the indignant wish that the ground may open up to swallow her forever.

Of course, Cameron thought and sighed inwardly, it had to be girl-House she ended up with, who ran a close second on the list of people she didn't want to see right now, directly after _actual_ House. Well, and Foreman, probably, who would only feel vindicated in his relentless judgments over other peoples' missteps. Her head hurt, and the continuous hammer blows from within didn't help to lighten up her mood, and for a minute Cameron contemplated going back to bed, sneaking off and pretending to sleep, or actually sleep, until her visitor left voluntarily. She had no such luck. Clearly, this wasn't a morning for anything even remotely _lucky_ to happen, because these kind of mornings just didn't follow her kind of night.

Hunched over the _New York Times_ with a pen in her hand, absent-mindedly taking an occasional sip from the mug of tea in front of her, Thirteen sat at the counter of the open kitchen.

"Fourteen letters, across. A stock character demon that appears in German folklore. Second letter is an _e_, ninth letter a _p_."

She looked up from her crossword puzzle, one eyebrow quizzically raised. Suddenly feeling _very_ mortified, Cameron did her best to escape the other doctor's glance and crossed the kitchen to busy herself with preparing coffee and a quick breakfast of fruit and cereal. Her movements, slow and shaky, required a big deal of concentration, and didn't make it hard to ignore her morning guest for a few quietly passing minutes.

"Mephistopheles", she eventually murmured once the silence, only disrupted by the noise she made, had grown sufficiently awkward, "Faust wagered his soul with him." She sighed. "Speaking of which..."

"It's all true. _Yes_, I helped you seduce an innocent young girl yesterday and yes, I _do_ own your soul now."

"Meaning you're a devil." Upon receiving no answer to her curious remark, she added: "What are you doing here?"

"That _is_ a good question. If only somebody in this room hadn't been too shitfaced to be left alone over night and could recall what happened– oh wait, that's right. _I_ do." Thirteen's utterance had a biting sarcasm to it, but the smile she gave Cameron was nonchalant, with maybe a tat of a malicious glee. "You're lucky I didn't have anything better to do than... well, you know. Or actually, you might not, but... anyway, I bet House would've _loved_ to pick you up, just for the sake of screwing one ridiculous favor after another out of you for the rest of your life." She shrugged and her grin spread a little. "Damn it, _that_ would've been interesting to see."

Not quite sure what to do, Cameron decided to eat her breakfast standing up, despite feeling like going back to sleep right there on the floor. After just one carefully chewed apple slice and a tiny sip of coffee, her stomach felt as if it was about to turn again.

"Why... w-why-" She took a deep breath and gulped a bit of saliva and a lot of air, fighting the urge to spurt to the sink and throw up. Could alcohol and maybe a few drunk-smoked cigarettes really make you feel that bad? She shook her head as if to rid herself from the thought that was more tiresome than it should be and did nothing but dispel her last bit of focus, but the motion only put the room around her in a violent spin that couldn't be stopped but was only hastened by shutting her eyes. She was madly racing through outer space, upside down in a gravity-free field, inside out, exploding stars all around. "Why are you still here?"

"A good one night stand doesn't last 'til sunrise. But if I'm just driving around and babysitting a drunk, I'm at least having breakfast." Once more, she sounded neither angry nor as if she wanted Cameron to feel bad or embarrassed about what had happened, but entertained just by observing the way Cameron reacted, or rather how this very had still _not_ figured out how to react. "And my shirt is currently in your dryer. It was getting kind of cold without it, so I took the liberty and served myself from your wardrobe. There's some used towels in the bathroom, too -you know, because I smelled like somebody had vomited all over me- but I'll be gone in, like, half an hour and you can pretend this never happened."

"No. _No_, I mean – thank you. I remember... _some_ of last night." She screwed up her nose in disgust. There was exactly _one_ thing she remembered and, of course, it had to be the grossest thing she had ever done to a colleague. At least she _hoped_ that nothing worse had happened, otherwise she'd have to cover up every mirror in this place with sheets, curl up under a blanket and not come out for at least twenty years. Flushed with embarrassment, she took a nervous sip of coffee and regretted it right away. "I'm _really_ sorry about that, it's not like I regularly do these... things, and what I _meant_ to ask was whether you slept here, because I didn't expect to meet you at all, at least not this early after... I don't know, a... _while_ ago?"

"It's ten thirty, if that's what you're wondering, and you called me up around _three_. It took me a while to get you here, though. You're not too agreeable when you're drunk, but have a surprisingly dirty mouth." She turned to the newspaper again, quickly scribbling another word in the pertaining squares. "Capital of the Ivory Coast. Ça c'est Yamoussoukro. Oh, and you should really sit down somewhere, you look like you're about to keel over."

"Yes, I don't think-" The suddenly increasing nausea interrupted her somewhat violently, but the abrupt spasm, feeling a lot as if it was twisting and squeezing her stomach with all its might, only caused her to regurgitate a bit of stale-tasting air. This time, at least. Cameron knew she wouldn't have made it to the sink, bathroom or garbage can in time. "I don't think that's the main problem. Did you sleep on the couch?"

Seeing how Cameron's grip to the bench top tightened, although it didn't look very secure, Thirteen let the newspaper aside and went around the counter into the kitchen area. One hand on Cameron's right shoulder, the other one on her left arm, she carefully lead her back through the living room, heading towards the hallway. "Let's get you into bed." She grinned at the suggestiveness of the statement and the thought that House would have made some kind of comment on girl-on-girl action or how they switched positions since taking care of messed up people was usually Cameron's obsession. Obviously, she was only hungover and far from being dead, but maybe death was just a bonus. _Complete and utter dependency_. Fuck, that sounded like a fetish. At the same time Thirteen couldn't help wondering how House had gotten in her head enough to annoy the crap out of her without even having to be present at all. That probably wasn't too healthy either, was it?

"You could've just dropped me off." Cameron slurred the sentence. After having felt crappy but capable of struggling though the day, her steps had gotten less and less secure as they passed the hallway and entered her bedroom. She was quite clearly not going to do much today, besides moving and eating as little as possible.

"You really don't remember much of last night, do you?" The question was purely rhetorical, and the answer to it self-evident.

She gagged a little, but somehow managed to keep her breakfast down. "I would've been alright."

"Yeah, sure. Except... well, _no_. Not really."

"Thanks, anyway. I'll be fine now."

She dropped onto her bed like a stone, thankful to finally be lying down again. The room felt as if it was spinning around her uncontrollably, but it was still easier to endure than it had been standing up. She heard Thirteen move around, and eventually her temporary caretaker returned with a small cleaning bucket, a bottle of water, a few light-pink colored pills and a small closing cap which, as Cameron recognized, belonged to her mouth wash. Even in her condition she could make out that is was a rather odd collection of items to give to a hungover-slash-fucking-drunk-person.

"You need to rehydrate. Take the vitamins, drink as much as you can without throwing it up all over the place and if you feel like you might, do me the favor and try to aim for the bucket. And your breath smells like your mouth tastes awful, so you might want to take care of that once you've got all of the basics covered."

At first reluctant, afraid this would be the thing to make her vomit, Cameron took only a small sip of water and carefully swallowed it. It felt good and while it seemed to lie in her stomach quite heavily she eagerly took quicker, longer gulps from the bottle, feeling as if she was getting thirstier with every further gulp. She only remembered the vitamin pills she usually never took but always kept around, when the bottle was almost empty and washed them down without giving much thought to it. She grabbed the closing cap, only about half of which was filled with clean, blue fluid, and carefully moved it around in her mouth, cautious not to swallow any of it. Other than expected, she still didn't get sick of it but felt slightly less gross, causing her to quickly almost gulp down the remaining mouth wash. Dammit, she was good at this. If only Thirteen had brought her a sandwich, too... She coughed and the sharp pain in her throat had her eyes sting with tears, but yet again nothing happened.

An alleviated smile flushed over Cameron's face. Something, far behind the mist of alcohol, sleep loss, and dizziness, she realized that she was making a fool of herself. The mist was enough to make her not care, though. Her smile grew wider until it melted into an unbridled grin. "I did it."

"And didn't even choke on it. Yes, very impressive."

"I think I'll have some breakfast now!" As Cameron exclaimed the decision with a sudden cheerfulness, she jumped out of her bed a little too enthusiastically and only caught hold of Thirteens's shoulder quite roughly a moment before she would have fallen back down. "I can have some now. And we could cook something, couldn't we? Like, fried eggs. Or pancakes. Or roast beef."

"No. No, we can not." Thirteen gently but decidedly sat the other woman back on the mattress but didn't succeed in persuading her to lie down. She hadn't smelled weed on Cameron at night and even if this very had smoked something, munchies would have kicked in a long time ago – whereas, now, there was no way in hell that she could still be high, leaving no explanation for the quick change of mood and appetite. Maybe it simply was the kind of hangover that... well, _works that way. _You're still a little drunk, rest and feel alright, get up and want to puke, all day long. The only problem was that she didn't know a better way to deal with it that to stick it out and sleep on the kitchen floor if there was no other way, so how was she supposed to handle somebody else's crazy?

Thirteen sighed, slowly but steadily getting tired of this. "Or maybe I could fix you something up."

"Yes... yes, that would be... great, really great, honestly." Cameron slurred the words as she had before, but put her head back and closed her eyes in the meanwhile. "I'll need to think about this for a moment, though, about what to eat and _everything_-"

Two minutes later, she was fast asleep, fifteen minutes later alone.

* * *

"...so it's not a big role, but I'll get to tour up the entire east coast, starting down in Florida and then just all the way up north. I mean, we're gonna be at the National Theater and I'll arrange top seats for you at the Loew's Jersey. Hey, baby? Are you even listening to me?"

You don't answer right away and yet you don't have to because you jump at the stupid pet name he insists on using, and were so caught up in memories about somebody else that you don't have the slightest clue of what he could have said. You don't even bother to hide, you won't succeed. He only smiles, though. It's because he thinks you're dreamy, head-in-the-clouds, and not a fucking freak whose thoughts go back to the person you once loved so much that you hate her guts now. Of course you never told him that.

"Sorry", you mumble and feel a little bad for him. You do that all the time. If he knew what you are thinking about he'd feel hurt, even though it's mainly _you_ who feels hurt and he wouldn't have the right to, and he'd try to make you forget, but you really don't want to. Then he'd try to make you talk, and you don't want that either. "You were saying?"

"The role I auditioned for. I got it."

"Wow, that is... wow."

You nod and smile, genuinely happy for him, and not quite as genuinely painting a well-trained picture of excitement on your lips. He's an actor and good enough to make a living of it, which is great, but he's not as good as to ever live up to his dreams. You're not even sure why you're with him. A french-inspired wine-and-cheese testing you only went to because your father asked you to, as if there would _ever_ be people you're interested in at an event your father takes you to. A bunch of old people who couldn't handle their cheese. Young people who couldn't handle their wine. All of them trying hard to look sophisticated, all of them abysmal liars. And him, the only one who wasn't either farting like a broached balloon or making a grab at you. Instead, he told you joke, and not even a good one.

Looking back, you still don't quite understand it, though. You were sober. You looked at him, and you weren't excited, not even intrigued. Nonetheless you talked, went on a date, went on another date, went home with him. Everything very traditional. It wasn't a first for you, but the first time since quite a while. He was really good at dates, at picking the right restaurants, the right flowers, the right moments. But never, not even once, were you as crazy about him as you knew you could be about people. He didn't know how to fascinate you and so you happened to know right away that he was just an okay person, but nobody... special. Special to _you_, that is.

You nod again and bend forward to give him a kiss. "That's great. Congratulations."

Funny how you've never stopped wanting more, and now that you want _more_ more than ever, you've finally given up trying. Or rather, you're just stuck, or maybe you're not, but you aren't looking for a way out either and that's as close to giving up because you're tired as it is to being satisfied with what you've got.

"Thank you. It's just... the opportunity. _Imagine_ who's going to see me perform. I've been working for this all my life, and it finally pays off." He's not a star. He's not star-material. Too boring. Too mediocre, also. "I'm just so happy. It still feels entirely unreal."

You hesitate for a moment. Really, you don't even remember whether he told you the news right away or told you something else before. When did he even come? You were watching TV and flicking through a magazine at the same time. There are a long couple of days lying behind you and you needed to relax. Still need to, truthfully. Then he came, and your night off turned into a tense blur.

So, you really don't know if you should ask him at first. You don't want to know. You just don't care enough. You want to go to bed, and sleep, and have nightmares of heartless monsters and soulless angels, dragging you into the empty space. But you have to know, because you _want_ to be as happy for him as he deserves. It's not like you're out of his league, it's him who deserves better.

"Who are you playing again?"

He laughs at you, which is okay, because others would shout it in your face. "You, honey, are looking at God!"


End file.
